


like champagne on my tongue

by chasing_the_sterek



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angelic True Forms, Angst? not in this house ma'am, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a Little Shit (Good Omens), Banter, Blasting Queen loudly enough for it to be an aesthetic, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), First Kiss, Fluff, I've been informed this makes people want to take naps so, M/M, Teasing, The Author Regrets Nothing, happiness, maybe that sells you on my atmosphere asdfchfkenwp, seriously these are the main themes, soft, that bears repeating, this is so soft oh my god, two FANTASTIC tags can i just say, warmth, we love him tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 06:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20059375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_the_sterek/pseuds/chasing_the_sterek
Summary: "I'm sobering up."Aziraphale's face falters briefly from its soft, fond look into something that maybe most closely resembles panic. He rearranges it instantly, but it still happened. "No, no, don't bother, my dear."Crowley sways, eyes narrowed. Aziraphale's hands don't move away after he steadies him.The suspicion that Aziraphale has sobered up at some point this evening without telling him gains another tally in favour."Aziraphale, I'mpickled,"he complains, but he doesn't sober up quite yet anyway.///In which Adam asks a very human question, and sets a very big ball rolling. Or, well, not quite, but that's as close as Crowley is willing to let you get.





	like champagne on my tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, lads, does it count as M/M if they're multidimensional Beings who have to Make An Effort? And does anyone know why both of these idiots have two identical character tags?
> 
> Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Adam stares at his feet for a minute or two, silent, and then says, very softly, "What does it feel like? To love someone that much?"

It feels like -

It feels like cranking up Queen until he can't hear himself over the din, like chanting _find me somebody to love_ and feeling the music swell up around him, through the Bentley, vibrating through his bones and his ribcage and into his heart, yelling _CAN ANYBODY FIND ME_ even though he knows he won't be able to hear that, either, and then collapsing into laughter trying to do the high note.

It feels like bottles of white and red and the rosé that he doesn't like but pretends to, for Aziraphale's sake, like walking through the streets watching the dark bruise of sky above them fade lighter and lighter as dawn comes, clutching a bottle of wine in hand and swaying, laughing hard enough that he has to close his eyes and bend over, like waking up to the sound and bustle of someone else and the smell of bookshop. It feels like every fond moment they've ever shared with each other, and the history seeped into every crack of it, and - and -

Everything ineffable in the world.

There truly is nothing new under the sun, but maybe, just maybe, there's only one of this.

Crowley realises he hasn't said anything in a while. "Big," he croaks, helpless to express any of it. "Really big."

Adam peers up into his eyes, searching, and then smiles like the slow spread of sunshine over the Earth, warm and bright. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." His voice is still hoarse. He clears his throat, but it doesn't help. "Yeah."

The smile is definitely more beaming than anything else by now. Adam turns it onto his boots, still kicking against the tree roots, though they have more of a pep to them.

"Cool," he says simply, and that's that.

///

Crowley can't stop thinking about it afterwards, though. The indescribably huge emotion, curled up in his chest. He wonders if Aziraphale can sense it, if he_ knows,_ but then that makes him wonder if maybe it's too huge. Like holding a slide too close to a microscope lens, or spending years in front of a fireplace until you forget that the world isn't always that warm. He's loved Aziraphale since Eden, and it's only spiralled from there, but if Aziraphale hasn't _noticed. . ._

He tries to bring it up. It's not very successful, though that may mostly be due to the fact that he brings it up incorrectly.

"We've known each other for, um. A while. Six thousand years."

"Yes," Aziraphale says, not looking up from his book.

He truly is a bastard. Crowley loves him.

He realises he hasn't bothered to add anything else when Aziraphale shoots him a wary look over the rim of his glasses. "What are you trying to say?"

"Um." He wishes he hadn't done this. "That's a while, huh?"

Aziraphale's eyes narrow. "It is."

Crowley huffs. "Oh, forget it. Never mind."

He pulls out his phone, which is more painstaking than it ought to be thanks to his skinny jeans, and pointedly doesn't acknowledge the way Aziraphale is still watching him, curious and puzzled in equal turns.

///

He tries to bring it up a few more times, stuttering and unsure, but none of them work. The closest they get is when Aziraphale hazards:

"Did you want to celebrate our anniversary?"

Crowley short-circuits completely at that. Just full-on shuts down. Blank, empty brain. The words _anniversary_ and _Aziraphale_ do not compute together in his head, even though he knows it's only meant platonically. The anniversary of the Arrangement, surely, or maybe the bookshop. There's an _explanation._

"I have to go," he blurts, when he feels like his silence is getting to be a little too telling.

Sometime after that, he realises that he's scared of what Aziraphale will say when he actually does manage to get the message across. His head is full of what-ifs that would usually make him scoff: what if he hates me for it? What if he shuts down the Arrangement and cuts me out of his life completely? What if he smites me on the spot?

Crowley curls up in the corner of his too-big empty bed and hugs his limbs to himself and _frets._

Better not to tell him at all, surely, then to tell him and lose him.

Surely.

///

The trouble is, of course, that Aziraphale is far more canny than he lets on.

Blisteringly intelligent, that's his angel, and usually it's a lot of fun: over six thousand years, you develop little games, little looks. Wordless communication. They can do what the humans call telepathy, if they fancy it, though that's really just talking on another plane, and fairly pointless when Crowley can just slant Aziraphale a _look_ over an irritating customer's head and get an amused eyebrow lift in return.

Sometimes, Crowley says one thing and means another, and lets Aziraphale decide which one's the truth (more often than not, they both are, though he's not sure if Aziraphale has figured that out or not).

Intelligence doesn't always lead Aziraphale to good things, though. There are times Crowley arrives at the bookshop to an ancient dullness to his eyes and a little knot between his eyebrows. There are times when he works out things that aren't good for_ Crowley,_ though thankfully those occasions are few and far between, and also don't earn him the crinkle or the stare. Instead, it's a mischievous twinkle to his gaze, or a slightly different rhythm to his step. Nothing noticeable to a human, but. . .

Six thousand years of knowing each other.

Crowley would hate Adam for dragging all of this to the forefront again, but if he's fully truthful with himself then he doesn't really think it ever left.

///

He catches the twinkle only after he's already three bottles deep into Aziraphale's collection of vintage reds. He's rambling about the undercurrents of lavender in what is, admittedly, a tangent whose dialogue is almost entirely stolen from the film _French Kiss,_ but somehow he doesn't think that's quite what Aziraphale's twigged onto.

There's something off about this expression: a note of wonder to the slant of his mouth, maybe. Awe, in the lines of his face, or surprise in the positioning of his fingers.

Crowley cuts himself off, instantly wary. "What."

Aziraphale doesn't look terribly surprised by the interruption. "Nothing, my dear, nothing at all. By all means, continue - you were up to some kind of mushroom, I think?"

Alright, so apparently he_ had_ worked it out, but there's still something else. Aziraphale is like a dog with a bone; he wouldn't have given it up that easily. He probably wants to be fully cognizant for this.

"I'm sobering up."

Aziraphale's face falters briefly from its soft, fond look into something that maybe most closely resembles panic. He rearranges it instantly, but it still happened. "No, no, don't bother, my dear."

Crowley sways, eyes narrowed. Aziraphale's hands don't move away after he steadies him.

The suspicion that Aziraphale has sobered up at some point this evening without telling him gains another tally in favour.

"Aziraphale, I'm _pickled,"_ he complains, but he doesn't sober up quite yet anyway.

That gains him a broad, warm smile. "You are," Aziraphale agrees in a tone to match. His eyes are still bright with whatever he knows.

Crowley wants to be suspicious, still - he does - but he really is truly sloshed, and his glasses have gone somewhere, and Aziraphale is still looking at him like _that,_ like he's something worth love and time and patience. Like maybe he could love Crowley back. And he doesn't know what Aziraphale has figured out, yet, though it feels like it ought to be obvious, but he can't bring himself to worry too much when he looks that delighted about it.

He opens his mouth and hiccups once accidentally. Bad start. "Fine, angel, I'll stay drunk. But I know you're not," he tacks on, prodding a wayward finger in his angel's direction. "So don't you take advantage of me."

Well, hang on. That might actually be kind of nice. He tacks on a belated eyebrow wiggle to imply there wouldn't be many consequences if Aziraphale _did_ take advantage of him. 

"Wahey," he adds helpfully, to get his point across.

Aziraphale snorts, then muffles more laughter into one palm. His eyes scrunch shut; Crowley takes the opportunity to stare lovingly at him.

Whoops. Eyes open. Back to Agreement-mandated levels of begrudging tolerance, he guesses.

They sit comfortably for a while. Crowley finds himself starting to list sideways, eyelids lowering inexorably downwards.

"How transparent you are," Aziraphale says softly, wonderingly. It's almost to himself.

Crowley, who has more than started to be affected by all this warmth and good feeling and has therefore drifted somewhat away from the point, blinks. "S'it that obviouss I want a nap?"

"I. . . yes." Aziraphale brushes a hand through his hair. It's unusual, but hardly unwelcome. "Yes, my dear, that's what it was."

A blanket lands on him. It's one of the heavier ones, that trap heat and give it back like it's no tomorrow; he closes his eyes, more than happy to sink further down into it.

///

When he wakes up in the morning, it's to a firm-but-comfortably-squishy surface beneath his head and a persistent ache worthy of every drop of those bottles of wine. He banishes the latter and assumes the former is the arm of the sofa right up until he hazards opening an eye.

He's greeted by the spine of a book.

He manages to read the entire title _(Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Anderson,_ presumably by Hans Christian Anderson) before the implications hit him.

If the book is there, floating above his head, then it's safe to assume that Aziraphale is reading it, which means. . .

Crowley stares at the embossed design on the spine of the book in a determined effort not to think about the fact that his head is pillowed on Aziraphale's thigh. It's not! It's probably a big rock, or something, and Aziraphale is leaning over the back of the sofa. And cast an illusion so Crowley thinks he can see his stomach, and him breathing, and just faintly feel his heartbeat, slow and soothing against the back of his neck.

He's also definitely not thinking about the fact that he didn't fall asleep like this.

This is, he thinks, exactly what Anathema would refer to as a _what the fuck moment._

He blinks over onto another plane of sight, suddenly desperate to see more than just Aziraphale's hands, to get an idea of what he's _thinking._ His wings are arched into a cone around him, the way they usually are when he gets particularly into a book, though this time Crowley's -

Crowley's in it. As well.

He will later venomously deny that he felt anything more than slightly hysterical, but right now he thinks he may very well die under the unprecedentedness of it all.

He normally only manages to score Aziraphale's lap after hours of drinking and a carefully-placed yet abrupt shift into the position; he's never woken up there of his own accord, and he's definitely never - been _included_ in Aziraphale's singular focus on his reading like this. He can see his eyes, the way they split apart his form in places humans don't even have. Whenever Crowley's caught a glimpse of them before in public they've been looking in all directions, constantly watching, but now they're all focused on the book with a startlingly singular intensity.

He wonders if the authors have ever known that they've corralled this much of an ethereal being's attention.

He wonders which ones, if any ever did.

Crowley blinks onto another plane. The already-transparent outline of the book ghosts even further, as he circles to the planes furthest from the humans'; he pays it little mind. Aziraphale has even more eyes, on this plane, and several are ostensibly keeping watch. They flick back to the book from time to time, helpless to resist. No wonder Crowley can creep up on him.

Another plane:

The eyes slip out of sight. There's a warm glow instead, one that feels like a good mood and a perfect cup of tea, and fizzles like champagne macarons on Crowley's tongue. He closes his eyes, and it sounds like the bubbling laugh Aziraphale lets out when he's been surprised into it.

Crowley thinks he floats there for a while, comforted by the way the soft heat is seeping into his core. He blurs a little, at the edges; his mind is half-snake, coiled up on a flat rock in full sun, and half-man, laying on the sofa beneath a blanket and a book.

There will be things to do, eventually. He'll have to tell Aziraphale he's awake, and work out what the bastard realised last night before it gets used against him. He'll have to go home, to his big empty flat and plants that are scared of him, but for now he can simply be, selfishly, watching the golden glow of Aziraphale's light and humour from behind his eyelids.

"Crowley."

It's distant. He might be dreaming. The voice is clear and fondly exasperated: surely they won't mind waiting?

_"Crowley._ Stop ignoring me, you idiot serpent, I know you're awake."

There's tapping on his face. He lifts a heavy hand and bats at it irritably. "Hrgndrk."

Amused: "Oh, really?"

"Mmh."

He slits his eyes open a crack and watches the ball of light at the centre bob and twist, bells of laughter underpinning everything Aziraphale says. The slip back into the human spectrum of sight is all too easy, though he notices the ghostly outline of the book has moved -

Crowley freezes. Aziraphale looks back down at him, expression all-too laughing and all-too soft. He says, "Now what were you looking at?" as though he already knows full well.

His eyes seem to glitter after the sheer lack of blues on the previous plane. This close, Crowley can pick out flecks of gold, of silver; little hints at what kind of creature is curled up inside. Breathtaking and vast. Awesome, in the original meaning of the word.

He feels, he thinks faintly, like he's parked the Bentley, cranked up the volume, and stuck in Queen.

"You," he whispers, half-terrified and half-invigorated.

One side of Aziraphale's lips pull up into what may be a smirk. Crowley's stomach swoops, like it's missed a stair. The definitely-a-smirk definitely widens.

"Were you now?" Aziraphale murmurs, eyes flickering, falling, down to his lips.

Crowley swallows. He starts to ask what Aziraphale is going to do about it, but he's already being kissed.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very tired so hmu if any of this is off and I'll fix it in the morning, cheers
> 
> Good fuckin yard, love you bye


End file.
